One of the most important aspect of sports is ensuring safety to the participants. This is especially true for contact sports, such as skiing, car racing, football, and hockey, for example, which require participants to wear helmets to prevent catastrophic head injuries. Helmets are designed to protect the user's head from impacting objects. Most helmets are designed to provide a snug fit between the user's head and the helmet to reduce movement of the user's head inside of the helmet during use.
Occasionally, participants wearing helmets and partaking in sports are injured and require medical attention. In such cases, individuals, such as emergency personnel, may need to remove the participant's helmet and safety gear in order to administer effective medical care. As such, the emergency personnel typically removes the helmet from the user (in a laying position) by applying a pulling force on the helmet, longitudinal to the person's body and neck, to slide the helmet off of the user.
Because of the tight fit between the helmet and the user's head, upon attempted movement of the helmet from the head, frictional forces typically exist between the user's head and the interior of the helmet. As such, frictional counterforces may obstruct or prevent the helmet from being slid off of the user's head easily. As a result, the safety personnel may need to exert enhanced force to the helmet. This enhanced force may be transferred to the head, as well as the neck, causing further injury to the injured individual.
Human anatomy provides that seven (7) cervical vertebrae form the bones of the neck that support the skull and organs of the head. The first cervical vertebra (atlas) supports and balances the head. The second vertebra (axis) allows the head to rotate laterally to the left and the right. Hollow spaces within the cervical vertebrae protect and conduct the spinal cord and vertebral arteries through the neck. Muscle attachment sites on the cervical vertebrae provide movement and posture to the head and neck.
By pulling on the head or helmet to remove the helmet from the injured individual, the emergency personnel may cause further permanent damage to the bones and neck supporting the skull and organs of the head, such as paralysis or death. Accordingly, the act of pulling a helmet off of a user longitudinally, providing a separating force, is highly discouraged. Unfortunately, during an emergency, helmet removal from the injured individual may be totally essential to provide the user with effective medical treatment.